


night by night (lullaby, rockabye)

by fateline (orphan_account)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Coming of Age, Drama & Romance, M/M, Sharing a Bed, aka bedsharing grew a plot ;;, non-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-08 21:56:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14703165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/fateline
Summary: Mark’s crisis begins like this: Donghyuck slips into Mark’s bed and into his heart.





	1. i.

****  
  


Okay, look. The thing is, Mark might try his best, and his best is usually great or at the very least, good enough most of the times. It’s a personal motto - do the best that you can, so that you’ll have no regrets.

Mark really does try the hardest he can. He gets in first during dance practices, tries to help Taeyong who’s shouldering his own leader duties in the best way Mark knows - Mark picks up his own slack and tries to help the other members pick theirs up in stride. Even it out, that way everyone’s able to be just tired and not sleeping half on their feet. For this effort, and maybe simply for the virtue of staying out of the way when he’s not wanted, most people adore Mark. His group members do, the staff do, and so do the fans.

If Mark, by some measure, is able to lessen the load on others he’ll be able to make them happier, then that’s what Mark will do. Feedback comes back in hair ruffles and compliments thrown his way. It’s good. Make less mistakes, do better, that kind of thing.

It’s just - mistakes are sort of inevitable though. You can only look them in the eyes as they approach and hope you didn’t fuck up too bad or too unforgivingly. You prepare, and if you can’t, you just pray.

Mark looks at Donghyuck in the mirror. He’s half a beat late for the formation change - Mark knows Donghyuck can see him but he’s been dead set on not acknowledging Mark’s existence for the past week or so. Mark’s honestly not sure what they’re fighting over exactly anymore since it’s just a minefield of microaggressions now but -

Mark grits his teeth, focuses on getting his expression to look somewhat like a cross between a glower and a smirk and- shit, his foot catches and he nearly goes down.

Dread slams into Mark full force.

Fuck. He catches himself too late - he tries to get into his next position and slams into Jaehyun, wincing as Jaehyun falls out of formation just as surely as Mark has never been in it.

Taeyong stops. Mark gulps. Taeyong gives Mark an inscrutable look - he’s a different kind of intense when it’s dance practice, and Mark finds himself looking for Donghyuck. He won’t meet his eyes.

The pre-promotion cram always leave everyone irritable - personal space bubbles triple and quadruple and the slightest mistake in dance practice gets you a cut-eye from Taeyong in the mirror or, if bad enough, is enough for Taeyong - or worse, Johnny - to pull you off to the side for the Motivation Pep Talk.

It’s bad. Everyone’s dead on their feet - Mark has had the privilege of being on the receiving end of one of Johnny’s discussions about teamwork and work ethics and the road to success. It’s good, in theory, something about teamwork makes the dream work or maybe Mark’s quoting someone else at this point, had anyone had more energy than to crawl from one class to the next in drop dead silence.

At the end of the day, Mark really, really appreciates everything the older members put into getting NCT to run smoothly - knows from experience that leading a bunch of kids, each with different wild ideas into just staying focused and quiet enough to produce such a cleanly oiled machine that’s an idol group - it’s not easy.

Mark just really, really wishes there’d be less Johnny Pep Talks involved in all of it - he’s not unmotivated - he just can’t motivate his own muscles to work harder than they already are without giving out.

The walk back to the dorms from dance practice is done in the same daze that had hit Mark earlier in the practice room - Mark is almost scared Johnny’s going to catch him outside for another one of the talks, but Johnny’s already focused on Ten. It’s cute, Mark supposes. He’d cast a last backward glance-

Donghyuck’s left already.

The bathroom schedule for tonight is blessed thankfully - Mark hits the showers up first, gets himself cleaned up in record time before he slips into bed, pulling the covers up and blacks out.

Something nudges him awake a while later - whether it’s ten minutes or ten hours, Mark really doesn’t know, but judging by how no one’s screaming in his face, it’s probably closer to ten minutes. Mark groans. He throws an arm over his eyes as the hand prodding his side just won’t stop, throwing the other out blindly to try to bat the thing, person off. He doesn’t hit anything, but it’s not stopping either - Mark rolls over.

The bed dips behind him he shifts his head and forces open an eye blearily - a blurry Donghyuck-shaped blob is making itself home in Mark’s bed.

Mark has half a mind to nudge off the arm thrown over his waist and the heat that presses itself against his back, but the haze seems to have settled into his bones - he’s so so tired and the bed is soft. The weight is safe, warm, and familiar. Mark shifts back on his side, wonders if it’s weird that he feels Donghyuck protesting wordlessly against him, knows that Donghyuck’s probably pouting right now, and decides he’ll figure out in the morning.  
  


 

~

  
  


It’s cold when Mark wakes up the next morning - there’s a gaping hole in the line of defense that he usually has against the morning chill - their dorm’s air conditioning is always set kind of low, in his honest to god opinion, and Donghyuck’s long gone.

Donghyuck’s always had this habit of leaving the blankets open when he leaves the bed - predebut, Mark remembers nagging him about it every time. Donghyuck’s either doing it just to spite Mark, or he just hasn’t bothered again. Mark thinks it’s the second, and it’s kind of endearing?

Mark pauses, stares at the Donghyuck-shaped hole at the other side of his bed, and wonders if it was a dream or not. Maybe Mark just slept really funny last night - he kicks in his sleep sometimes, but he usually doesn’t dream when he’s so tired and he remembers seeing Donghyuck.

It fills him with some sense of giddiness, something light. It’s this implicit knowledge that Donghyuck’s not leaving him behind and that he’s still turning to him when he’s tired - or maybe Donghyuck had known Mark wasn’t feeling great and that. That too makes Mark feel really warm, if that actually happened and wasn’t just a fever-tired hallucination.

Rolling over, Mark slips out of bed, catching himself just in time, once again, when his knees lock in a way that’s painful. The sheets still smell like Donghyuck - it’s the goddamn fruity shampoo that he loves using.  
  


 

~

  
  


“Why would you wanna smell edible?” Mark complains, waiting for Donghyuck to finish changing after dance practice. Even with the smell of old socks in the dead air, Mark can still smell the strawberries faintly. “That’s weird. You smell like socks and strawberries now.”

Donghyuck levels an extremely unimpressed look Mark’s way. It’s really, really cute, Mark thinks, and chalks it up to how he hasn’t met many fourteen year olds who have the same chubby cheeks, bright smile, and high-pitched voice that’s just so Donghyuck, well, about Donghyuck.

“Yeah?” Donghyuck says, shoving his shorts in his bag. He thinks for a second, pursing his lips. “You smell like socks and tea tree oil infused shampoo or whatever shit you use and is that really any better?”

  
  


~

  
  


Donghyuck’s already in the kitchen when Mark finishes freshening up - they’re not allowed to slack on their skin especially when filming’s coming just around the corner.

He looks up when Mark enters. Mark holds his breath - Donghyuck looks like he wants to say something, and Mark has his own greeting on the tip of his tongue, but Donghyuck looks away in the next second when Taeil comes stumbling in, who stubs his toe at the edge of the doorway and ends up sitting on the ground in pain for the next five minutes.

Mark breathes out - he is not disappointed, he is not disappointed, he is _not_ disappointed; it’s just Donghyuck, for god’s sake - and goes searching for his cereal stash slowly.  
  


 

~

  
  


“For god’s sake,” Doyoung says, snagging Mark by the back of his denim jacket when they’re walking to dance practice the next day. The rest of the group hasn’t arrived yet, but Mark can hear their chatter floating through the halls. “I need to talk to you for a second, okay?”

Mark looks down at the hand fisting his jacket. “Okay? Of course, hyung?”

Doyoung, contrary to Mark’s expectation - or perhaps Mark should be used to how weird his hyungs can be at this point but he just hasn’t acclimatized - does not let go. Instead, he hauls Mark closer. “Are you _still_ not talking to Donghyuck?”

Mark gulps. In some respects, he’s been dreading and expecting this question for days - it’s been brewing in the glances of askance that everyone’s been throwing their ways at every brushed off pat and every cold shoulder - but no one quite breaches the topic like Doyoung.

It’s mildly sobering and completely terrifying. “We talk,” Mark whines, knowing full well that it’s not what Doyoung’s looking for and. This is about to go as well as things go when you decide to lie down, bleeding, in front of a wolf.

“You talk.” Doyoung looks so scandalized that Mark feels bad. “Is this what teens these days call it? You spoke like a total of two complete sentences to him yesterday and he just grunted both times.”

“I can’t control how he’s going to react!” Mark says, throwing his hands up. He takes a step back, lets out a breathe when Doyoung gives him some room to collect himself. He doesn’t get why Doyoung’s bringing this up with him instead of Donghyuck if they’re going to be talking about the latter’s lack of responses.

Doyoung huffs. “When I said you spoke two sentences to him, I meant you one of them was a jab at his height and the other was a straight-up insult, okay?”

Mark sputters. “I was civil!”

“You said, quote unquote, ‘pick up your feet, or do I need to do that for you too?’ at practice yesterday, Mark.”

“He really was half-assing it,” Mark says, finding it hard to meet Doyoung’s eyes, “I’m just looking out for him, I know what how he dances when he’s not trying to be a little shit, and this is just him trying to be a huge shit.”

“I swear to god.” Doyoung casts his eyes skyward and it makes completely terrifying into shitting-my-pants kind of terrifying. “If I loved you guys a hair’s breadth less you guys would not be breathing right now.” He clicks his tongue. “Look, I couldn’t care less what third grade flirting tactic you guys are running, who can insult the other one better or something--”

Mark feels the warmth creep up, fuse burning, staining the tips of his ears and the apples of his cheeks red. Flirting tactic? “I-I’m not! Why would Donghyuck--”

Doyoung waves him off, spinning Mark around and pushing him into the practice room when the others start rounding the corner at the end of the hall. “You guys figure your own problems out, okay? You ask Donghyuck if you’re not sure. The point is, you’ve been at this ugly ass routine for a month straight, and even the fans are picking up on it. You guys had this sorted out for like a week where you were kind of civil and now you’re right back at it? Mark, it’s even worse than before, I swear.”

Mark winces, wrings his hands in front of him. “I--” And the thing is, he doesn’t really know how to defend himself. He’s not sure whose fault it was between him and Donghyuck and that’s kind of the hardest part - had Mark managed to fuck up that much? Maybe Donghyuck’s justified in giving him the cold shoulder because what Mark did--

Doyoung’s vicious. There’s no let off whatsoever. “I know there aren’t any promotions right now, so it’s okay if you’re not doing your usual Siamese twins act, but we _are_ promoting as eighteen soon. You guys need to patch this up. If not for the group, for yourselves. And!” Doyoung says, holding up a hand when Mark is about to interrupt again as he anxiously looks at the shadows looming outside the door. “Don’t try to pull the whole ‘I can leave my problems at the door when I’m performing thing’ because I will call your shit, Mark Lee.”

Taeyong pushes the door open then and almost hits Mark. He looks at Doyoung and Mark huddled together in silent question, an eyebrow raised, but Doyoung waves him off and sets off to put his stuff down.

“What happened? Are you okay?” Taeyong asks, setting a hand on Mark’s shoulder. Mark bites his lips.

“Yeah,” Mark wants to say, except he watches Donghyuck brush past him without a glance, looks at Doyoung’s stare in the mirror, and the words stick to themselves in his throat until that’s all there is and he can’t breathe.

  
  


~

  
  


Night falls.

If Doyoung were watching, he’d probably be drawling “case in point” into Mark’s ear when Donghyuck comes home that night and makes a beeline for Jaehyun’s room. Mark’s ignored once again, but that’s not all that new these days, is it?

Mark’s not sure what possesses him exactly to call out, “Hyuck?”

Donghyuck pauses, a foot frozen in the air, before he sets it down gingerly, and looks to Mark almost angrily, except this is the coldest and most unreadable he’s ever been to Mark and it scares him a lot. It feels a lot like Donghyuck’s out of his reach. A room, a stage, a continent away.

“Nevermind,” Mark says. He looks down, and Donghyuck leaves. The courage has evaporated - what was he trying to even achieve?

The pad of feet back into the living room draws Mark’s attention - he starts. Donghyuck’s back, holding a pack of shrimp chips under his arm and dangling in Mark’s face a pack of the instant noodle snack Mark’s parents had bought from Hmart back in Vancouver every week. Mark buys it when he feels homesick sometimes - Donghyuck used to make fun of him, but he’d oblige all the same.

“Well?” Donghyuck says. It’s still so so cold. Mark feels bare before him. He wonders where the Donghyuck who crawled into his bed a night ago went - the doubt comes back - and if it was just a pipe dream.

Mark’s mouth runs itself. “We’re not supposed to be sneaking snacks though?” _The managers will be onto you again. I don’t want to see you in trouble. Why are you offering me my favourite snack when you haven’t talked to me in_ years?

Donghyuck’s face shutters in a millisecond, to something even more glacial than before. Mark hadn’t even thought that was possible. Mark wants to tape his mouth shut. Take it back. Ask a different question - anything.

“I’ll take it!” Mark yelps. Donghyuck stares at him - a long flat one that makes Mark want to fidget and shrink which is ridiculous because this is the same Donghyuck who Mark’s watched laugh so hard he’d snorted up milk for a solid minute - and tosses him the bag. “Thanks.”

Donghyuck leaves and takes the pipe dream with him.

  
  


~

  
  


In the growing chronicle of Mark-and-Donghyuck, this chapter’s a newer one. Here’s the thing: logically, Mark can remember a time when the older trainees would do a double-take when Donghyuck clinging to Mark, begging for a piggyback ride because his legs hurt, or letting his head fall in the crook of Mark’s neck like it’s made to rest there - some magnetic force bringing it back time and time again.

Logically, Mark wouldn’t let this bother him as much as it does because there’s more to life than wonder if it’s a dead end for where he and Donghyuck stand or if it’s just a bend.

Mark doesn’t do the logic thing too well.

Sometimes Mark feels like something’s missing, but he’d be caught dead before he admits it. It’s days like this, when Doyoung’s pressing and it’s late and Donghyuck’s there at his back but there’s none of the usual brush against his arm or a hug or just a nod - that Mark almost cracks but how do you approach something that you can’t see unravelling?

  
  


~

  
  


“You okay?” Jaehyun says, a hand on Mark’s arm the next day when Mark stumbles a bit in the middle of the Black on Black choreography.

Mark grunts.

“You look like shit,” Jaehyun says, and Mark bites back a laugh - if even Jaehyun’s onto him, then he really must look like death warmed over because Jaehyun usually leaves the nagging to Doyoung and Taeyong - and if not, Johnny at least.

Feel like shit too, Mark wants to say. “You don’t?” he says, raising an eyebrow and instantly feeling the remorse crashing in - wave against crumbling levees.

Donghyuck’s in the opposite corner, huddled with Yuta, Doyoung, and Taeyong, back an unreadable wall to Mark.

Yuta says something funny. Donghyuck throws his head back as he laughs, clutching Yuta’s arm as he throws himself into the laugh and. Mark wonders if he’s allowed to wonder if the Donghyuck-who-slipped-under-his-covers is the same Donghyuck-who-leaves-a-twenty-mile-radius-around-Mark-Lee. What’s Donghyuck even trying to pull?

Age old habits make him gravitate towards the corner maybe, but Mark’s glad he caught himself before he got too close. Jaehyun’s still managed to see and break off and corner him though.

Jaehyun doesn’t miss the little side glance Mark flicks. He looks at him with a glint in his eyes. “You look like sleep deprivation meets insomnia,” he says, and bless someone in the group for having tact.

“I haven’t really,” Mark admits, “slept that well. Or slept that much, really. You know how comeback is.”

Jaehyun snorts. “I know you pass out as soon as your head hits the pillow usually, so don’t think I haven’t heard the kitchen trips you made every night for the past week.”

Fuck. Maybe it was naive of him to think he could sweep this one under the carpet too. “It happens,” he whines, studiously looking at the mirror and trying to find Taeyong so he could drag Jaehyun back to practice their formation, please and thank you.

“Does it have anything with your tail abandoning you? I thought Doyoung would’ve cracked down on you by now.”

Jaehyun needs to learn to keep his mouth shut. His grin turns shit-eating:

“Oh, has he already?”

Mark is going to search up the nearest cliff on Naver and throw himself off, thanks.

  
  


~

  
  


In his defense, Mark has always had trouble falling asleep as a kid.

Sleep doesn’t come easy when it drags with it a personal selection of nightmares catered directly in relation to what happened throughout the day. There’s always this one that comes back again and again:

Mark is standing at the edge of a cliff. The grass is green underneath him - he doesn’t know how he sees it but he knows that at the end of the drop there is a meadow faintly in bloom, singing in the wind. The waves crash against the coast.

The wind picks up - Mark holds his breath. His stomach drops.

The world falls away around him with a snap and there’s nothing to hold onto he’s--

  
  


~

  
  


Mark comes to Korea when he’s thirteen, fresh faced and in awe of how Seoul doesn’t sleep at night like the world does back in the Vancouver suburbs. Culture shock doesn’t just live in the air - it bleeds through to the crooks of day to day interactions until Mark’s not sure how he’s even breathing and dealing with the shit that gets thrown at him - luggage claim, customs, the wailing child three families ahead in the line-up.

He arrives at the airport and is swept up by the quickfire chatter of his grandmother’s Korean - she’s throwing phrases that he’s never heard in his life, but he nods, smiles. He’s happy to see her, and she’s got her arms around him and it’s just--

It’s just the first part of the never-ending story that’s how touchy people can be.

This is what Mark knows as familiarity and love, when he stayed with his parents back in Canada:

He comes home at 3:30pm to an empty house and a note on the fridge about where the leftovers are and how he should heat it.

He waits three hours. His mom comes home - she gives him a quick hug, a kiss on his cheek and he says “ew” because that’s kind of disgusting but he grudgingly gives a hug back. She goes off to cook and Mark goes back to doing his homework.

He waits three more hours. His dad gets home half to ten, flings his suitcase on the couch and collapses into the dining room chair. He grabs a bite to eat, asks Mark about his day, but he’s not really listening because he’s so tired.

Mark’s just happy to tell the story anyway.

  
  


~

  
  


Mark shares his space and his life with a select few. The story’s a bit different when you're training to be an idol and you have to be on demand open and bright and cheery but that--

(That’s a different story.)

Sometimes there’s thoughts that spin around in Mark’s head until it leaves him dizzy and he feels like he has to get it out otherwise he’s going to burst, but that’s reserved for the privacy of his notebook and the lyrics that he handpicks - looks through once, twice, three times and then a million over to present just what he wants people to pick up.

Mark comes to SM and he’s not sure what he expects really. He doesn’t make many friends - adjusting and training is hard already and he’s content, he thinks. Johnny he befriends on the third day after Mark nearly cries hearing fluent English.

People learn to give Mark his space in turn. It’s a status quo, of sorts, and those are always comfortable. Mark thinks he can get used to living like that until debut, or if he even debuts, and he’ll have Johnny and Taeyong and Jaehyun to depend upon, assuming again they’re selected for the same group which he really hopes for.

Maybe it’s a foolish, naive hope.

A year later, Mark comes home to the trainee dorms to absolute chaos. He’d heard rumours that someone new would be moving in but it’s a different reality to come back to see your stuff pushed to the side of the room, a mattress on the previously unused bunk, and seeing Taeyong, who takes days to warm up to anyone, literally coo at the new kid.

“This is Lee Donghyuck,” Taeyong tells him, as Mark stands off to the side in the doorway, feels something twist in his chest and wonders if the boy staring wide-eyed back under the wing of Taeyong’s arms will be another person he’d have to compete with in one way or another. “He’s a year younger than you, so I told Jaehyun to help move his stuff into your room? I thought he’d probably appreciate rooming with you since you’re closest to his age, I hope that’s alright with you?”

Mark has literally no choice, he’s tempted out to point to Taeyong, because Taeyong’s already anticipated the yes and. Glancing up at Taeyong doing a damn good impression of Bambi eyes, he’s not exactly wrong.

As far as first impressions go, it’s nothing special, but Lee Donghyuck doesn’t let Mark rest. Mark tells himself he’d look after Donghyuck  - do him the courtesy that’d been shown to Mark himself when he’d entered SM, and Donghyuck pays it back by sticking to Mark.

Donghyuck is completely a factor Mark hadn’t considered before - he looks at Mark and there’s sparks or stars in his eyes, and Mark had planned to just show him around and show him the ropes. Instead, he’s snared the second Donghyuck opens his mouth and out tumbles sounds that are familiar as they’re foreign, some odd accent that Mark doesn’t know how to place, and when Donghyuck clarifies when they’re out buying lunch at the convenience store across the road, Mark files it as exclusively Donghyuck information in his mind.

Everywhere Mark turns, it seems like there’s this call of “Mark-hyung,” and it’s a concept that’s as strange and exhilarating as it’s just odd to him.

Donghyuck doesn’t think about space like the others - he finds Mark and there’s a hand through his hair or a cheek on his shoulder and--

At night when Mark starts as a weight settles itself and his heart freezes until he hears Donghyuck’s faint, “Hyung?” in the dark, he finds that sleep comes a bit easier when there’s a warm weight pressing into your back or your side. It holds him. It grounds him.

The nightmares of falling get a little warmer, a little brighter. The world still falls away underneath him and Mark wakes up sweating sometimes - but Donghyuck just blinks sleepily when Mark’s woken him up with a wayward limb or two and grumbles, hits Mark’s chest, and tells him to go back to sleep before Taeyong starts nagging them because god save Mark if he doesn’t let Donghyuck sleep as much as he’s able to.  
  


 

~

  
  


Doyoung ruffles Mark’s hair when they get back to the dorms. “Take it easy, okay? Sleep well, we’re recording tomorrow.”

That’s rather unfortunate, because the stylists and make-up artists will probably murder Mark tomorrow when he comes in with his usual ensemble of plaid shirt, jeans, and black eye bags, but is that really anything new?

Mark goes and hits up the showers as soon as he’s able to, giving Taeyong a tired nod when they pass each other. He washes the day’s worth of grime away into the drain, towels himself dry and slips into an old t-shirt and sweats before stumbling to his room. He turns the lights on - and stops.

There's a lump on his bed. It shifts when the door creaks shut behind Mark, hair sticking out in disarray on the pillow as the intruder turns towards him and Mark must be dreaming or needs to go to the hospital now to get treatment for hallucinations since that's Donghyuck lying right there playing with his phone.

Donghyuck lifts his eyes from the screen for a second. There's this tenuous space in between - Mark takes a slow step forward, feels like if he moves too fast, it’s all going to fall away before his eyes. Donghyuck hasn't made himself quite so home in Mark’s bed since back when debut had been a far off dream, back when they'd press themselves close until they couldn't figure out where one ended and the other began to stave off the doubt and the loneliness.

(Donghyuck loved to play with Mark’s hair, then. They’d talk for hours, hushed whispers when the hyungs had fallen asleep. There's no kind of energy for that these days, and even if there were, they'd just. Stopped.)

Mark takes another step forward, and then another, until he's standing right at the edge of the bed, staring down into a precipice. Uncertainty. He holds his breath.

It’s too late and Mark is tired. This situation - it feels so delicate and so demanding of the tact that Mark just doesn't own at one in the morning, it feels like one wrong word will send them spiralling again.

So Mark opens his mouth, ignores the pumping of his heart going _What’s Donghyuck doing here, What’s Donghyuck doing_ , and asks, “Did you brush your teeth yet?”

Donghyuck hums. Nods his head after a good second, lazy like there's not another care in the world and like there's nothing wrong for him to be taking up space in Mark’s life again after shutting him out for so long but-- that too, that's just so Donghyuck and Mark’s chest hurts.

Donghyuck is still waiting for something in all the ways his arms are too stiff holding his phone, in the way he’s not paying complete attention to whatever mobile game’s captured his attention this month. Mark thinks he sees some badly rendered graphics of cats or something like that, some kinda monstrosity that Donghyuck would probably call him uncultured for not recognizing memes if they were still on speaking terms. Mark wonders if he can just break the tension, slice it open and ask Donghyuck what he's doing here, but Donghyuck offering him the snack comes to mind and he doesn't want a repeat of the shutdown.

“Shove,” Mark says, making up his mind, in the hazy way decisions in the middle of the night tend to be, but he feels so awake, nerves screaming. Mark thinks it might be the sleep deprivation making him feverish. He sets a hand on Donghyuck’s arm, and feels him go tense under the touch for a second before he heaves a sigh and shifts. “Go to sleep, we’re shooting so damn early tomorrow.”

Mark fully expects Donghyuck to get up and walk back to his bed.

Donghyuck doesn't look up, doesn't make any more eye contact than he needs to. He continues playing whatever goddamn game he's playing, but he scoots until Mark can lower himself into bed without literally doing it on top of Donghyuck.

That - that's ok. Mark looks at the opposite end of the room, looks at Donghyuck’s empty bed resolutely. Thinks about asking, “Why?” but the thought slips the more his eyelids droop, and just clenches his hands and slowly lets go when he feels the tickle of Donghyuck’s hair touch the nape of his neck.

 

 

~

  
  


Mark wakes up in the morning in an alternate universe - on the wrong side of the bed because he always likes sleeping on the side closest to the wall but Donghyuck’s hogging that spot and Mark’s almost off the bed, and the sun’s rising in the west.

The sun is not, in fact, rising from the west.

The sun, in fact, has not risen at all and it’s the blaring of Mark’s phone alarm that’s jolted them awake, but it damn well feels like it when Mark wakes up to feeling like all the fatigue from the past decade has decided to crash into him right there and then. He’s not sure how he’s going to get up from the bed, does an extremity check since he can’t feel his arms, and realizes it might have something to do with Donghyuck quite literally trapping him to the bed with how tightly he’s clinging.

Mark, for once, doesn’t feel like he’s a hair’s breadth away from snapping at how wound up he is. He blinks. Tries to shake his head, and feels Donghyuck whine from behind him again.

“Snooze it, oh my god,” Donghyuck says. “Or god help me, I’m going to take the knife in the kitchen and commit homicide to your phone myself - or is it phonicide? - and _no one_ can stop me, not even you--”

Mark squints at the screen lighting up in the dark. If he snoozes it they’ll be out immediately and then Taeyong’s going to be yelling at them when they don’t make it out of the room and then Mark will have to explain why he and Donghyuck are sort of doing better and Mark really doesn’t know if they even are.

It’s too much for the morning. Mark throws Donghyuck’s arms off him and hauls himself out of bed, taking the arm that Donghyuck extends and dragging him off for good measure too.

Donghyuck yelps, gets up off the floor, and shoves Mark so hard his ass almost kisses the ground just like that - it’s the morning daze, okay? - and then things seem to snap into place for him, like he’s just realized where exactly he woke up and his eyes get a little wide.

Mark swallows hard. He stares down at his feet, one toe greeting him sadly through the hole in the Moomin socks Renjun had gotten him as a gift two years ago. What an apt parallel of his life, as Donghyuck’s going to snap out of whatever made him deem Mark a decent enough person to socialize with again--

“Did you haul my ass outta bed just to stare at your feet?” Donghyuck snaps, extremely disgruntled, and Mark looks up in alarm, mouth open, and he can’t find anything to say. This is not a dream or a nightmare but he’s still freefalling.

Donghyuck winds an arm around Mark’s resolutely and Mark thinks this is Donghyuck’s way of showing him pity or maybe, god forbid, it’s Lee Donghyuck’s olive branch.

  
  


~

  
  


It’s sunny outside. Winter’s just melting into spring and the air’s still crisp outside but the sun doesn’t at all, and Donghyuck insists on going out in just a t-shirt.

Mark calls upon the wisdom of his esteemed elders - which, mainly is just his mom and grandmother yelling at him in his memory that’s he’s going to be cold and he’s going to regret his life and they were usually right much to the dismay of seven-year-old Mark - and tells Donghyuck that he needs to wear a jacket.

Donghyuck sticks his tongue out at Mark.

“What are you, three?” Mark asks. He grabs both their bags, and takes a moment to just soak in the fact that Donghyuck’s responding to him again after a month of radio silence.

“You have an IQ of three,” Donghyuck says, nose turned up. “It’s sunny, you idiot. It’s warm. There’s no wind.”

  
  


~

  
  


They walk home after practice that night, and the thing with Seoul, much like Vancouver, is that the temperature plummets as soon as the sun sets.

“Why is it so windy,” Donghyuck says, hissing through his teeth. They’re talking a slight detour through the urban park nearby since, “We’re taking the scenic route,” except his teeth are chattering in a way that Mark finds really worrying.

Mark opens his mouth. Donghyuck immediately jumps in.

“If you say I told you so, I’m gonna make sure you regret every. Single. Aspect. Of your sorry life.”

“But I did warn you this morning,” Mark says under his breath. Donghyuck turns to him, eyes narrowed, and Mark realizes maybe it was a bit too loud in hindsight, even with the wind blowing gently between them. Donghyuck doesn’t look nearly as terrifying when he’s shivering and something in Mark’s chest twinges. “Here.”

He takes off his sweater and hands it over, gritting his teeth against the chill that he hadn’t really noticed before because he’s smart and he’s not Donghyuck. Part of Mark is berating himself for not thinking about grabbing Donghyuck’s sweater for him that morning; he hates how quickly that habit’s fallen out in the lull between them hanging out.

Donghyuck snatches Mark’s sweater with the ease of someone who’s been hanging off of him for years. He slips it on - it’s a bit too big on him and he has mini sweater paws and Mark might be willing to risk all colds just for this - and turns to Mark only then. “Won’t you be cold?”

“As long as you’re not,” Mark says, and it brings another rush of warmth and elation to see Donghyuck widen his eyes at Mark like he’s crazy but he’s biting back a smile.

“Did you eat something something funny today? Are you okay? Since when did you become _nice_?” Donghyuck asks, whispering the last word in a hushed tone like it’s some kind of disease.

Mark blames it solely on how surreal the whole situation feels, how giddy he is that they’re snapping back into old patterns like there’s no break at all, and if this is what it takes to make Donghyuck stay and stay-by-his-side, then it’s exactly what he’ll do.

It’s. It’s an exception. Mark’s not sentimental, or anything.

  
  


~

  
  


Patterns snap back and then set. Mark finds himself drawn to Donghyuck’s side in a painful way that he hadn’t realized before - the absence sets him aware of Donghyuck’s presence that he’d simply taken for granted to be filled in the past.

It was just. Space-for-Donghyuck before, and now Mark’s hyper aware of Donghyuck leaning in and his fingers finding the hem of Mark’s longsleeve as they’re looking at something funny on Mark’s phone.

(There’s too little space between them, which is weird because Mark’s never minded Donghyuck in his space before but. He’s counting it now.)

Speaking of which, since Donghyuck’s started talking to him again, Mark suddenly finds there’s so many things to talk about:

“Hyuck, have you seen this new phone game? It’s really cool, I downloaded it yesterday,” he says, remembering how he’d been meaning to show it to Donghyuck.

Donghyuck perks up. “It better not be lame,” he says, but his attention’s caught in a way it hadn’t been seconds earlier when they were looking at the cat videos.

Mark exits the app, and flicks through his phone’s home screen. Finds what he’s looking for. Donghyuck looks more and more excited, and then--

“What. What the fuck,” Donghyuck says. Mark looks over, eyebrows knit, feeling so out of his depth because he’d thought Donghyuck would appreciate it? “Mark-hyung, that’s 2048. We went through that phase like. Two years ago.”

  
  


~

  
  


The cold war’s end looms in sight for days, and ends like this:

Donghyuck chases after skinship with more tenacity than before, reaches for it more often and grips and just doesn’t let go. Yuta and Taeil give them funny glances more than once or twice, and Mark tries drawing back but Donghyuck just doesn’t let him and Mark just comes to accept it. It’s just Donghyuck. Just one of the Donghyuck-things, and Donghyuck has a lot of them.

It’s sort of cute.

Donghyuck picks up weirder habits these days, not that Mark’s complaining all that much. It’s nice to come out of practice, especially when Donghyuck’s practicing with Dream and Mark is off after personal or U practice and Donghyuck’s just outside the room, phone in one hand and bag in the other, and then his face positively lights up when he catches sight of Mark making his way over.

The silent fight from days ago feels like a dream. A bad one, that’s gone away ever since Donghyuck’s slipped his way back into Mark’s bed at night, creeping in and pushing until he’s the only thing that exists again.

It takes Mark’s breath away - the good and the bad way - in all the ways that are scary because it makes him realize just how empty things can be without Donghyuck, and in the way that makes him feel warm all over when Donghyuck suggests that just the two of them visit the new cafe down the street that opened up.

It’s their own secret. He tugs Mark’s cheeks, calls him cute, and Mark opens his mouth to protest - cute? He’s not cute, he’s cool, but Donghyuck pulls the same shit after 127 practice one day in full view of the other members. Mark ducks his head, tells Donghyuck to knock it off, but Donghyuck only tilts his head at him owlishly, cutely.

(Perhaps Mark melts and pinches Donghyuck’s cheek too.)

  
  


~

  
  


These days, the air is charged like the calm before a storm - this deathly stillness before shit goes down. Mark brings it up to Donghyuck once when it felt too quiet, looks for anything to fill the discomfort in, to try to make Donghyuck laugh, but Donghyuck mulled over it uncharacteristically long.

“That’s because wet season’s coming soon,” Donghyuck says at last, nudging Mark’s shoulder. “What’s got you all philosophical today? Are we playing mini-Homer now?”

Mark wrinkles his nose. “Homer’s not a philosopher,” he says, and Donghyuck nudges him even harder.

“Sorry,” Donghyuck says, in the least apologetic tone Mark has ever heard, which is a pretty impressive record to beat, although to be honest, he’s mostly one upping his own records. “I forgot everyone gave shits about old white dudes who died a million years ago.”

Donghyuck does this - deflects when he’s feels like it’s out of his comfort zone. Mark doesn’t poke at him - feels that he’s kind of uneasy too. “Hey,” Mark says, thinking about Johnny’s old history teacher who Johnny has so many anecdotes about, who apparently loved Plato. “Some people care about old white dudes.”

“I live life in the moment,” Donghyuck says magnanimously. “I like my dudes not very white and not very old. Preferably alive.”

Mark swallows. There’s so many ways he can interpret that statement, but if he’s Donghyuck’s friend, shouldn’t he give him the benefit of the doubt--?

“Yeah,” he says. Laughs. “I like my people alive too, you know?” _Like it when I can hear your heartbeat against mine and when I know you’re there and you’re real and you ground me,_ and pins that one to friendships you would die for.

  
  


~

  
  


For the friendship, Mark also remembers to dig up the guitar gathering dust that he hasn’t touched in a couple years from the corner of the room, buried under an old jacket of his.

Donghyuck mentioned, a few months ago, that he missed singing with Mark like they used to back in the days - “Let’s get a headstart before next vocal lesson,” Donghyuck would say, and they’d get off track and start singing to one of Mark’s old and outdated English songs anyway and then Donghyuck would always make sure to segway into Michael Jackson because, “he’s like the OG, man.” There’s not much time to do it with everything that’s thrown at them these days, but it feels like a special occasion.

Donghyuck eyes Mark suspiciously when he brings it out at night. Mark had cleaned it up a bit, but, Donghyuck does raise a point when he says, “Do you even remember how to play it?”

Mark huffs. “I might have to look up the chords to some of the songs, but as long as you give me a request in advance I can learn it for us, okay?” Donghyuck gets really quiet. “What, did I say something wrong?”

Donghyuck shakes his head, subdued. “I didn’t expect you to remember this,” he says. “It was an off-handed comment at like, four in the morning.”

“I know,” Mark says, trying to diffuse the situation because he and Donghyuck? It’s supposed to be fun and casual and comfortable. “Although I probably remembered it _because_ it was four in the morning.”

“You don’t have to learn anything new though,” Donghyuck says. “Isn’t that a huge hassle? We can just sing some of our old songs. Billie Jean, come on!” He’s smiling at the end, but Mark shakes his head.

“It’s okay, I’m working on a few melodies anyway.” He sees, in his mind, the lyrics book he hasn’t touched in weeks, and thinks a white lie is okay since he does need to work on it anyway. “Learning the chords to some songs won’t be anything.”

  
  


~

  
  


Another habit to fall back into: Donghyuck’s warm and solid on days when it’s still too cold at night for one blanket but two’s overkill, and frankly, Mark just doesn’t want to go back to the closet to dig what he stored away two weeks ago because chances are someone else has stolen it already, or it’s all the way at the bottom.

Mark finds himself looking forward to sleeping for once. It’s a feeling he’s trying to get reacquainted with again too - he looks himself in the mirror sometimes and wonders if some fundamental part of him has died or whether it’s come back alive after hibernation - this excitement to get something as simple as sleep is unsettling.

Being there with Donghyuck wards off the nightmares, maybe that’s why. Donghyuck doesn’t let Mark toss and turn because he’s all up in Mark’s space. It feels safe.

He waits at night sometimes, holds his breath because isn’t it dumb to wish so pathetically that Donghyuck wouldn’t change his mind and still come and chase the nightmares away tonight and tomorrow and the night after? Mark is all of nineteen and going on ten at this rate, but then the bed would dip and and these days, Donghyuck doesn’t even need to tell Mark to move over - he’s already there.

The outer half of Mark’s bed is reserved for Donghyuck, maybe. Half of Mark hopes Donghyuck realizes, and the other wants to hide forever.

Donghyuck keeps a careful space between them usually when they’re not tired enough to lose all shame, from all the times in the past, when they were trainees that Mark would nudge and kick for just to keep the two seperate when it’s too hot or Mark’s suffocating, and it’s nice. Nice that he remembers.

Donghyuck turns. Mark wonders how comfortable it really must be, and thinks, fuck it. He slips an arm around Donghyuck’s waist, buries his head in the crook of his Donghyuck’s neck like Donghyuck’s so fond of doing to him. He holds his breath - Donghyuck doesn’t tense, merely shifts slightly again and presses himself closer. Mark doesn’t think his heart’s going to settle down enough to let him sleep for years.

Maybe it’s okay to indulge himself a little. Mark folds himself against Donghyuck, floating in the warmth, and it’s like nothing can touch them. Mark hears the sound of a door creaking open and then clicking shut behind them, but that doesn’t matter. All that exists is the way he folds himself in closer towards Donghyuck.

 

 

 


	2. ii.

****  
  
  


Mark wakes up the next morning to the sun spilling in through the window. He jolts up - if it’s bright out it means he’s woken up too late, and holy shit - did they miss the schedule, did no one bother to check on them--

His heart only calms down when he realizes there’s a short break in training since filming had gone well into the am yesterday, and based on everyone’s performance, their manager had managed to pull some strings to get lessons postponed until the afternoon. 

Donghyuck’s still sleeping, so small in the large swaddle of blankets he’d hoarded over the night. Mark itches to to touch, wants to push the hair that falls across his face back up and smooth away the grimace that’s worked its way onto his face since Mark’s not blocking the light anymore. 

It strikes him that Donghyuck looks his age face aglow in the light washing in past the windows, expression devoid of the curtained coldness and emptiness that’s made its home there too often this past while. 

Mark feels funny, swallows around the lump in his throat. He wants to pull the blankets tighter around Donghyuck, so Mark does. He brushes the hair in Donghyuck’s face out of the way. He blinks. 

The urge to kiss him builds deep in Mark’s stomach, to get closer. It bubbles up into his chest and heart and lungs until he feels choked - he runs a hand through Donghyuck’s hair again and he turns into it, completely trusting, whining softly in the slow way he does when he’s being woken up. 

It’s - it’s absurd. Mark chews his lip. This is - this is Lee Donghyuck, for fucks sake, the boy who stuck to him like glue the first few years at SM and annoyed the fuck out of him; the boy whom Mark found crying in the washroom of the dorm at midnight when everyone else was out because his voice wouldn’t stop cracking and his face had looked so ugly Mark had had to take a picture - it’s for blackmail! - but deleted when Donghyuck only cried harder. 

And. More importantly, Lee Donghyuck is the boy who’s stood by Mark all these years through thick and thin, through highs and lows, who understands Mark and scares him in equal measures sometimes and, ultimately, is and always has been his best friend. 

He takes a deep breath, draws his hand back, and stumbles his way over to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. What kind - what kind of fever induced, sleep deprived codepency shit is this now? 

Mark clambers into the kitchen, still so disconnected. He shouldn’t even be thinking this way about Donghyuck, should he? How disgusted would Donghyuck be, to learn that these thoughts had flitted through his mind - is there anything Mark can even blame it on outside of being a shitty friend and--

“Did you have a good sleep?” Doyoung asks, looking way too smug for ass o’clock in the morning. Doyoung frowns. “It’s not ass o’clock in the morning, it’s ass o’clock in the afternoon.” Oh shit, Mark thinks, apparently he said that out loud, but he looks at the clock blearily anyway. It’s 12:31pm. That’s basically the morning, fuck Doyoung. 

“I don’t sleep,” Mark grumbles.

“That’s fair,” Doyoung says. “I’d give that to you usually, but you looked pretty cozy last night.”

Mark stills. Heart stalls. His world doesn’t drop out from underneath him, but it’s peeling away little by little until he can’t stand tall.

All that falls out of his mouth is a stunned, “Huh?”

“I heard,” Doyoung says, sipping his coffee all too casually and looking way too eager, “that you two looked pretty cute sleeping together yesterday. Are our passive-aggression free practices here to stay?”

It’s not clicking. How does Doyoung know that? Mark thinks back to twenty minutes ago in the room and Donghyuck sleeping so peacefully and softly and Mark had wanted to give the whole world to him on a platter and what if someone had seen that too, shit. 

“I.” Mark swallows. “I guess? But how - how did you know?”

Doyoung sets his mug down lightly. “A little birdie told me. Granted, he’s not very little but their brain sizes match, I guess.”

“I heard that!” Jaehyun’s disgruntled voice floats in from down the hall. “I told you out of the goodness of my heart and you repay me like this?”

“Great,” Doyoung says. “Stop eavesdropping and go back to what you’re doing.”

“Mom, he’s taking away all my entertainment.” Mark can practically hear Jaehyun sulking. 

“Ignore him.” Doyoung turns back to Mark. “So. How’s the honeymoon phase? Is she here to stay?”

“I really - I really  _ don’t  _ know what you’re talking about,” Mark says slowly. He doesn’t like what Doyoung’s implying; it’s like Doyoung knows what’s been scaring the shit out of Mark and how does Doyoung  _ know? _

Doyoung huffs, running a hand through his hair. “Look, kiddo. I can’t believe they made me have this talk with you, but like, if you’re dating, you know you can tell us, right? We won’t judge you. Johnny’s off fucking around with Ten half the times anyway - not literally, obviously, oh my god, stop looking so scandalized, but I’m sure there’s some of that, which, none of my business. The point is, love is love and we’re in the twenty first century, alright? You know?”

Mark’s brain is firmly stuck on the word dating and not processing anything past that. “Why,” he says. It comes out strangled. “Why would you even think that, what the fuck, hyung? Like, just, where did you pull that out of?”

“I have eyes. And I have a brain, coincidentally,” Doyoung explains, too patiently. 

“But Donghyuck and I aren’t like that,” Mark says, eyebrows furrowing. “You’ve got us wrong.”

Doyoung raises an eyebrow. Mark swears he can hear his voice saying, “Sounds fake, but ok,” in his head.

“We really aren’t!” he says. Vaguely, he realizes he’s raising his voice and maybe he should tone it down, but the frustration outrides. He remembers the warmth of being beside Donghyuck, and having it ripped away, and he’s so so cold. “Why are you all so dead set on misinterpreting it? I’ve known Hyuck for all these years and we’ve grown up together, yeah, but not like that. I love him and I treasure him but ultimately at the end of the day, we’re friends and we’re not like Johnny and Ten, alright? I’m not--”

Doyoung’s eyes widen; he makes some kind of gesture that he hastily aborts, but Mark’s not finished - the dam breaks and the hurt’s just gushing and gushing. 

“I don’t  _ like _ him, so stop making it sound like, we’re dating or something!”

A beat. 

Doyoung’s not answering him, eyes stuck on something behind Mark.

“Oh,” Donghyuck says, eyes too wide and shiny behind him. He still looks soft, but he’s not glowing - he’s ghost pale and still. 

Mark’s hands rise. He’s not sure what he’s doing but he wants to just - reach out for him.

“Donghyuck,” he says, and like they’re being released from a spell, Donghyuck slips out of the room without another word. 

He passes Jaehyun who’s padding in, who takes one look and asks, “Who fucked up this time?”

Mark’s hands are still stuck in front of him, reaching for the shadow that’s left. 

He’s a dam. He’s bleeding out.  
  


 

~

  
  


Donghyuck’s presence, which slowly molded itself from an iron wall into the very air around Mark once he fit himself back, is gone without a trace.

Donghyuck stops sleeping in Mark’s bed again, and these days, even the fitful doze the Mark had figured out for himself during the cold war that him and Donghyuck had been fighting doesn’t work anymore. Mark can’t sleep again. He tosses and turns and the less he gets, the more agitated he gets.

Mark gives Donghyuck his space - he’s not sure how to unfuck a situation that you can’t even pinpoint how you messed up. It’s gotten to the point that Donghyuck just refuses to be around him and Mark wonders. 

  
  


~

  
  


Mark goes on Naver late at night. Types in the searchbar:  _ Why won’t he talk to me _ , and then backspaces the fuck out of it because how dumb is that, it’s not like Naver knows he’s talking Donghyuck and it’s not like Naver will know what Donghyuck’s been thinking.

_ What did I do wrong.  _ Mark hits enter. There’s a bunch of relationship articles that pop up and some obscure furniture guide? He closes the window. 

  
  


~

  
  


How fate works is that it lets people find each other, make promises, and then splinter their roads into a thousand irreparable shards until they can’t discern up from down, left from right, and there’s no way to bridge the gap again. 

Mark doesn’t really think about these kinds of things, to be honest, but spending time with Taeyong when he’s drunk off his ass does things to you, and becoming a mini-philosopher is apparently one of them. 

“Who hurt you, hyung?” Mark had asked, flabbergasted, and Taeyong had patted Mark in the overly familiar way he tends to when he’s making a point. 

People grow apart. It’s a part of growing up and life and paths diverging and splintering and falling apart, but Donghyuck had made Mark swear, on a disgustingly hot summer night two years ago that they’d never let that happen to them.

It feels something like a secret, an ember that would die if you dared whisper into the dark. Mark feels the thrill running through his veins, heart pumping, and it tingles when they link pinkies. 

Donghyuck laughs in his face. He calls him dumb - “What the fuck,” Donghyuck says, and Mark wants to scrub his mouth with soap except Donghyuck’s not thirteen anymore and Mark can’t shield him forever (Taeyong had scolded him for that, the hypocrite) even if he wants to. “Mark-hyung! What are you, six?”

Mark is in fact, not six. He’s sixteen. Donghyuck doesn’t seem to remember sometimes with how much he smothers him in hugs. Mark tries to pull his hand back. Donghyuck doesn’t let go. 

“When did you get so sappy, _oh my_ _god_ ,” Donghyuck says, dragging the last three words out in English triumphantly - he’d lifted the phrase off Mark - looking every inch like the cat who ate the canary and Mark feels like he should be annoyed. 

Mark ducks his head down. Sighs. And - he can dig nothing but fondness up. 

It feels a bit like being lost at sea, with only Donghyuck’s grin to ground him. 

 

~

  
  


Two months ago, Mark turns nineteen, although it’s eighteen in Canada, and he has some time to think about, well, time. 

Sometimes, Mark feels like he’s growing further apart from the members of Dream. There won’t ever be anything that can sever the bond between them - eighteen-hour training days builds bonds that you don’t even speak about ending, alright? - but time takes its toll.

It’s not much - it’s so dumb, as Donghyuck would say, in the grand scheme of things. It’s one year - less than a year between Mark and Jeno and Jaemin, but it feels like there’s an ocean stuck between them on days when the two latter would be sharing some inside joke that’d happened while Mark and Donghyuck were away. 

Proximity breeds connections, that’s the thing. When Mark meets back up with them, there’s always Renjun there to hug him even though Mark makes sure to shy away because he’s got his image, come on, and Chenle and Jisung will be laughing from the sidelines and Jeno and Jaemin will be stuck together but so happy to see them. It’ll feel like there’s some terrible weight lifted off his shoulders - some way of reconnecting with a side of the duality that he lives with constantly. 

A foot in both worlds. Interacting with the younger kids and sticking around with the hyungs - Donghyuck takes to it like a fish in water while Mark feels like he’s floundering. Maybe that in itself is a change:

Friendships evolve as time inevitably changes them. Molds them. That’s how they thrive, Mark knows, and there’s milestones. Mark and Donghyuck come in a package as much as Jeno and Jaemin do these days. It helps that he and Donghyuck stay at the same dorm by the god blessed virtue of Donghyuck being in 127 as well. Donghyuck laughs at different jokes these days, and he’s always searching up slang, but he still laughs the same and it settles something in Mark’s heart. 

It’s good, Mark had supposed. He can still have some nice things, even if some cracks force their way in. 

  
  


~

  
  


The winds of change blow again a week after his birthday. 

There’s plans made to take Mark out drinking at a bar except that falls through because of schedules and there’s so many things that could go wrong and they finally settle on buying a few handles of beer and just drinking at the dorm. 

Donghyuck’s in his room gaming, but he comes and finds them when Mark’s just about managed to drink his ass off and everything’s funny and his head just feels so goddamn heavy. 

“Hyuck?” Mark asks.

Donghyuck nods. His face looks funny. His whole person is just kind of funny and Donghyuck might be the funniest person Mark knows, so Mark tells him that. 

Donghyuck scrunches his nose, but Mark thinks he looks happy so Mark’s happy too. “You’re so drunk, oh god,” Donghyuck says. “I’m gonna record you and I’m gonna have so much blackmail and you’d probably let me, oh my actual fucking god. You’re such a clingy drunk.” 

“Am not,” Mark tries to say. It comes out weird, and well, funny, again. He laughs and can’t stop.

He starts getting dizzy - the rooms spinning and he rests his head against Donghyuck, laughing into his shoulder. The room stops spinning as fast by perhaps a tiny ass fraction, and Mark slowly hauls his head back up. It’s a herculean effort. 

Donghyuck looks so uncharacteristically solemn looking down at him and a fair shade confused too. Mark wants to wipe the expression off of Donghyuck’s face. “Smile,” he tries to say again, and Donghyuck tilts his head. “What’s wrong?”

Donghyuck hums something, but Mark’s not listening - he’s caught up on how funny Donghyuck makes his stomach feel with his face being right there and. Has Mark told Donghyuck yet that his face looks funny? “You look funny,” he says, just to play it safe. 

Donghyuck huffs. He looks so fond and Mark’s heart is going to beat out of his chest and it’s all going to be Donghyuck’s fault so if the doctor asks when they go to the ER, Donghyuck’s gotta take the responsibility. 

“I’m gonna take him back to his room,” he says. Mark’s not sure who Donghyuck’s talking to, but okay. Donghyuck’s taking someone back to his room. “Come on, fatass.” Donghyuck has an arm slipped under Mark’s shoulder. “Get the fuck up.”

Mark stumbles to his feet. There’s a little tuft of hair that falls in Donghyuck’s face, and he looks really good with his hair light brown, because even though it takes his breath away, it’s better than the heart-stopping red that it had been dyed for We Young promotions. Donghyuck looks so adorably confused once again, asks Mark what he’s talking about, and Mark realizes maybe he’s been running his mouth again.

“Stop talking in English,” Donghyuck whines. “I can’t tell if you’re insulting me or telling me you love me.”

I love you, Mark wants to say, but pauses. Is that too homo?

Donghyuck sets Mark on his bed, and Mark splays a hand out on the covers. It feels funny. He feels like he’s floating, and he’s going to fall or something. “Wait,” Mark says, when Donghyuck makes to go.

“I’m,” Donghyuck says in question, “waiting?” when Mark doesn’t know how to get the words out. 

“I wanna tell you something.”

Donghyuck nods indulgently. “Yeah, you are telling me something right now. What’s the something?”

“It’s a secret.” Mark draws Donghyuck closer, because secrets mean you have to whisper it, and he drags Donghyuck onto the bed too - Donghyuck’s hand is on Mark’s thigh and it’s too hot and Mark wants to be closer. “It’s a really big secret.”

Donghyuck laughs. Mark thinks it’s a bit nervous but Donghyuck isn’t nervous very often, so that’s probably not right. “What secrets do you even keep? You’re the worst blabbermouth I’ve met. You panic when anyone frowns at you and you tell them anyway.” 

That’s a lie. Mark tells Donghyuck as much - “Why are you bad mouthing me? I’m your hyung,” he says, and tells himself he’s not whining. At all. “But no. I L-word you.”

I like you a lot since you’re funny sometimes, Mark tries to say, but changes his mind at the last second and just settles for “I like you,” except Donghyuck still looks confused. 

“You’re slurring,” Donghyuck says, trying to draw back. “Tell me tomorrow.” 

“No.” Mark’s petulant. Donghyuck needs to know now. Today. He pulls Donghyuck down towards him more insistently and his mouth is by Donghyuck’s ear, and when he tries to talk his lips brush against Donghyuck’s skin. It’s really, really distracting. Donghyuck smells so nice, and his hair is really nice, as are his eyes and Mark really likes how beautiful and radiant he is.

Mark thinks maybe Donghyuck should know this. It’s a good idea, half of his brain says, while the other half is screaming bad idea, but Mark doesn’t really care since it’s not telling him why it’s a bad idea. He raises his hands and cups Donghyuck’s face - Donghyuck looks like a deer in headlights and Mark wishes he would just smile and laugh again - and brings Donghyuck’s face closer to his, until he feels like he’s going to go cross-eyed. 

His heart is still going a million miles a minute, so he kisses Donghyuck on the mouth and hopes it’ll settle. It doesn’t, but Donghyuck tastes so soft and his heart picks up again in a way that isn’t painful and. Mark’s happy. 

Mark’s really happy. 

He just wants to continue doing this - or that, or whatever for a really really long time, but then Donghyuck pulls away and Mark’s left chasing after the feeling, the warmth. 

It’s funny, and Mark’s still giggling but Donghyuck isn’t laughing. Mark stills, slowly. “What’s wrong,” he wants to say, but he’s so tired. He doesn’t know if it comes out right, and Donghyuck’s saying something too, but Mark doesn’t hear it anymore - he dozes off and pushes the feeling that something’s wrong right out of his mind. Donghyuck’s here. Mark’s safe. Mark really really likes him.

  
  


~

  
  


Mark wakes up the day after the Kitchen Incident where he Royally Fucked Up but couldn’t tell you how exactly if his life depended on it, to a total disconnect between his body and his mind. It’s eerily like when he woke up after the Drunk Kiss Incident and Donghyuck was nowhere in sight.

The aftermath of the Drunk Kiss Incident is filed in his mind like this:

His body is not moving whatsoever no matter how much he wills it - can he physically divorce it or something? - while his mind’s running through the logical steps it would take to gouge out his own eyes. 

It’s so fucking bright. He closes them, feels some of yesterday’s hazy memories come back in the back of his eyelids like a movie playing in slow motion and remembers the trainwreck that was the feeling of Donghyuck’s lips on his.

Mark jolts up, and his head instantly screams, but Mark’s brain is now fully off the eye gouging issue and turning over all possible scenarios of where Donghyuck could be this morning. His head is pounding and his mouth feels gauzy, and something is crawling up his throat. 

Fuck. He pushes the Donghyuck problem to the side in favour of staggering to dry heave in the toilet, while simultaneously wishing that all lights in the world could just disappear for one day, please and thank you. 

He bumps into Donghyuck on the way back to the bed. Mark gulps and, Donghyuck. Donghyuck still looks really good and put together, and he looks so concerned for Mark that Mark feels the shame seeping down and into his bones. 

He doesn’t know how to justify the kiss.

It’s like Donghyuck sees Mark bleeding. “Are you okay?” he asks, and Mark shakes his head to clear his mind (bad move, his head screams once again), and chokes out a weak affirmative. 

“As good as I ever am, and fuck alcohol because I’m never ever drinking ever again. I don’t know why anyone would put themselves through this willingly, holy.”

Donghyuck laughs. It’s a small sound, and Mark realizes now that he’s holding a glass of water and some aspirin. 

“The hyungs told me to bring this since we didn’t manage to get any water into you yesterday before you passed out and your head’s probably killing you,” Donghyuck says. “Does it hurt? I think you drank quite a lot yesterday.”

Mark winces. Honestly? It hurts quite a lot. He doesn’t let Donghyuck in on that though, brushes it off in favour of a short, “It’s chill.”

Donghyuck stands there for another second, like he’s deliberating something, before handing the water and pills to Mark. “Do you remember last night? Like, do you remember what you did?” he asks, and Mark feels the world closing in on him.

“Some of it, I guess?”

Donghyuck goes straight to the punch. Asks, “Why did you kiss me?” and it’s a bullet, a knife straight into Mark’s lungs and Mark can’t breathe. 

His heart leaps into his throat - it’s a fuzzy memory from yesterday, a clash of lips against lips and teeth. Why had Mark done that? He’s not sure. He can’t give an answer past he’d just. Wanted to. And admitting that scares the shit out of him so he’d shrugged and said,  “Did I?”

Donghyuck looks at Mark really hard, flat, and angry. 

“Do you really not remember? Mark-hyung, look, I’m serious. Look at me,” he says, and Mark manages for a second before he has to look at the side again. “You’re lying. I know you, Mark Lee, and if you want to kiss me and then pull this shit, you can’t possibly think I’ll take it lying down.”

“Fine,” Mark spits. “If you’re so sure it happened, why are you even asking me? It’s not a big deal. Why are you being so dramatic?”

Donghyuck steps forward into his space. “Was it just a joke? An experiment? I just wanted to know why you did it, for god’s sake.” 

“I don’t know.”

“You’re the one who kissed me, what do you mean you don’t--”

Mark claps a hand over Donghyuck’s mouth. “Can you. Can you just please stop repeating that part, okay? I don’t know. I told you I don’t know.” Why is Donghyuck pressing and not letting this go? “It’s not a big deal.”

Donghyuck looks so disappointed, but it’s gone between one second and the next that Mark wonders if he imagined it. Why would Donghyuck be disappointed that Mark didn’t kiss him, is he spoiling for a fight, Mark just doesn’t  _ get _ it. Donghyuck can’t possibly. He couldn’t possibly like it, could he? He’d pushed away Mark, that much Mark remembers too. 

“What, so you’re telling me it’s a mistake? It’s an accident?”

Mark looks down, thinks he sees a lifeline, and says, “Yeah. Sorry, I’m a really clingy drunk, I guess, and I didn’t know what was happening. Sorry you got caught up in it.”

Donghyuck drags a hand through his hair. “Was I really asking for too much? Was it really too much to hope--” He cuts himself off.

“I’m sorry,” Mark says again.

Donghyuck cuts him the coldest glance. “Don’t apologize if you don’t know what you’re apologizing for, hyung. Can you just - just give me some space? I don’t wanna talk until you stop being a bigger idiot than you usually are,” and with that parting insult, he’s gone. 

Mark’s head is pounding as he crawls back into his covers. 

  
  


~

  
  


(Donghyuck says don’t talk to me, so Mark doesn’t talk to him for a day and - these kinds of things tend to blow over eventually so he keeps waiting for Donghyuck to come back to him, except Donghyuck doesn’t come back the day after, or the day after that, and then the days trickle into a month.

The cold war starts. Maybe it’s Mark’s fault, if Mark could figure out what that is, and maybe it’s Donghyuck’s because isn’t that demand just kind of ridiculous?)

  
  


~

  
  


Mark stumbles out of his room a few hours later, the sun peeking into the room. 

He makes his way out into the halls and finds Johnny walking by, so he sets a hand on his arm and asks, sorta slow, “Have you seen Donghyuck?” 

Johnny looks at him funny. “Shouldn’t you know that? I thought you guys made up, or something,” he says, and oh, Mark feels something sinking in his stomach. Apparently Johnny hadn’t gotten the memo that Mark had Fucked Up Once Again. “I haven’t seen him all morning, so I thought you knew or he’d left you a note at least.”

That’s dumb, Mark wants to say, but he bites his tongue. Donghyuck doesn’t leave notes. Donghyuck has never been one for leaving notes - he leaves traces of himself behind in the haphazardly strewn blankets that are left gaping open in the morning and the affection he doles out in handfuls and armloads when he plasters himself next to Mark. 

  
  


~

  
  


(It’s not fair. 

It’s not fair how Donghyuck breezes into his life and fundamentally changes Mark and then is just out when he feels like it. Maybe Mark’s fucked up so much too but doesn’t Donghyuck know that Mark needs him--

It was Donghyuck who crashes into Mark’s life - Donghyuck who’d insisted on linking pinkies, and Mark literally didn’t care for it before but then Donghyuck was just always in his space. 

Donghyuck comes in with his laugh, the hugs when Mark’s feeling down and just wants everyone to leave him alone but there’s Donghyuck’s head on his shoulder and arms snaking around his waist until Mark doesn’t know where he ends and begins. 

Donghyuck shows him it’s freeing to just let go for a moment: 

_ Just one second, mom, I’m coming! Just one second more. _ )

  
  


~

  
  


When Mark was younger, people used to tell him that he’s brave for going to Korea all by himself. You’re all grown up now, they’d say. What a strong young man. Your future’s looking so bright. 

Mark doesn’t really view it that way. He’d done what he believed in, in the only way he knew. Dreams are kind of fleeting, he supposes. He finds one and he grasps on in the way thirteen year olds are fascinated by flashing lights and everything shiny. 

As Mark gets older, people tell him he’s brave for choosing the path of an idol.

There is nothing brave about it, Mark wants to tell them. Nothing brave about being scared to discover what your limits are and how much you’re only human. Nothing brave about willingly isolating yourself and exposing yourself to be cut down again and again. 

Nothing brave about watching your best friend walk away from you, step by step, as you can see his receding back but you don’t know why exactly he’s leavingleavingleaving.

Mark’s not brave but he’ll try. He’ll try for the boy who makes him want to do better and walk by his side. 

  
  


~

  
  


Donghyuck takes to appearing and disappearing around the dorm without any warning and in hindsight, Mark realizes it’s that way with Yuta and Doyoung and Jaehyun too, but Mark’s not used to seeking them out only to come up with nothing.

Lately Donghyuck’s been staying in more often. He sits in the living room on movie nights that Taeyong likes to round up the dorm for sometimes, although the movie’s always ignored in favour of bickering not even halfway in because someone always has something snide to say. 

(“The Titanic? Oh my god, the Titanic, really? Are we actually doing this? I’ve seen dried leaves that are more interesting like - Jaehyun are you tearing up?”)

Donghyuck is mysteriously absent for the last one and no one speaks about it outside of a snide cuteye from Doyoung and Mark feels terrible - and that’s why it’s such a load off his back when Donghyuck slips back in when everyone’s just lounging around when there’s a moment to breathe. 

Donghyuck laughs at the jokes Mark makes. There’s something a bit more mellow about him these days, remarks falling a second or two too slow and laughter a bit too loud. Mark’s goddamn heart still races, Pavlov’s dogs? Pavlov’s heart? But Donghyuck glues himself to Johnny like never before. 

Mark knows it doesn’t mean anything and Donghyuck doesn’t treat Johnny like he used to treat Mark, but something in him nags that it’s his spot. He’s just always assumed that he and Donghyuck will always be okay even if they fight sometimes, and that at the end of the night, Donghyuck will come back to him.

Donghyuck is full of surprises, and the fact that he still gets Mark is the ultimate joke on him.

  
  


~

  
  


Donghyuck starts smiling again. 

A week passes and then two, and the hurt of being left behind fades from this agonizing throb in the side whenever Mark has time to sit down and rest, to this faint headache that’s still always there. 

Donghyuck’s laughing at something on cable TV and it makes Mark want to laugh and cry at the same time. His chest twists every time it happens and he tells himself he’s happy to see Donghyuck happy. 

  
  


~

  
  
  


Donghyuck talks to him now about random stuff but he’s bland around Mark these days. 

“You haven’t been talking to me recently,” Donghyuck says, an ounce of previous petulance creeping into his tone. 

You didn’t want me to talk to you, Mark thinks about saying. “I just didn’t have much to say.”

“What? Mark Lee? Nothing to say?” 

Mark remembers something tight in his chest whenver he’s around Donghyuck that wouldn’t let his mouth stop running, until he’s picking on all that he can grasp and Donghyuck’s looking at him with something shining - and a little hurt? - in his eyes. 

This is Mark and Donghyuck except the thing gripping Mark’s heart now doesn’t let any breath into his lungs.

“We promised that we’d never drift apart, right?” Donghyuck says, at last.

Mark swallows. “Right.”  
  


 

~

  
  


Donghyuck has this habit of replaying songs for days and weeks on end - blasting on speakers or slipping the other earbud into Mark’s ear, that’s how he knows - and then tiring of it in what seems to be a second. Then he’s onto new replay fodder, “check this out, hyung!” and the world goes on and on.

Mark’s working on lyrics today. It’s a nice block of an hour before he has to go out again, and there’s finally quiet since Donghyuck’s not around and Mark can hear his own thoughts - and he thinks and thinks until he’s biting his nails in frustration because nothing’s coming out. He pulls his earphones off the floor where he’d left it lying yesterday. Plugs it in. Puts it on shuffle and presses play.

Red Velvet’s Second Date comes blasting. He winces and hastily turns it down, but he pauses because he doesn’t remember downloading the song and it can really only be one person, because only one person knew this old phone password before he’d changed it.

(Mark doesn’t like changing passwords because he always forgets at first, more than it’s worth, but he’d gotten everyone’s side-eye when Justin Bieber played for a solid minute at a group meeting before Mark realized it came from his phone. 

“Because you’re Canadian, get it?” Donghyuck crows in the aftermath of Mark losing all cred in front of Johnny, forever maybe.)

Donghyuck shows him the Red Velvet album well into the middle of the night on a day when they have to wake up early the next morning for schedules - he crawls into Mark’s bed without a shame in the world and says, without preamble, that there’s no better time to enlighten Mark’s world than now.

“It’s good, trust,” Donghyuck says. “My god, are you doubting my taste? Me? Have I ever done you wrong?” 

Mark has a running list that he’d been thinking of writing down just to spite Donghyuck at times like this, but. It’s too much effort for a brat. 

Mark turns on the table lamp nearby, squinting at the phone illuminating Donghyuck’s face from below, giving it an unearthly blue glow. The yellow of the lamp makes Donghyuck’s face look softer, more forgiving. Mark looks down at the album, squinting as he scrolls through and out of the corner, and he sees Donghyuck looking at him out of the corner of his eye. 

It’s a look that Mark hadn’t been able to put a name to then - and again, he remembers seeing it before when they’re sitting in front of the convenience store in front of the dorms back when they were trainees and no cameras were trained on them. He remembers seeing it in the mirrors of the practice room for a second before it flicks away, so logically, Mark really doesn’t wonder about it much because it’s just been an integral part of life and what made up him and Donghyuck for so long. 

But. It’s just, in the stillness of the empty room as he tries, for the twentieth, the millionth time to put thought down on paper, his mind keeps coming back to Donghyuck. Comes back to the way Donghyuck smiled when he showed Mark the song, and wonders why it won’t stop playing like the repeat button’s broken in his mind.

Mark and Donghyuck used to have something that the books might call friendship, but it had always seemed a bit too simple to call it that. Mark hasn’t had to wonder about putting a name to it before. He simply breathed, and like air, Donghyuck was there. 

And no matter what that nameless entity between them was, Mark grinds his teeth as the drought of words doesn’t cease. He misses what they have. What they used to have, and Mark thinks he misses it a lot. 

He misses Donghyuck’s touches and the way they’d be there for each other and he misses having someone he understands and someone who understands him. And he wonders where he went wrong: Why would Donghyuck would just stop and why doesn’t Donghyuck treat him with all the adoration like before?

This hard won stillness in the waters has been messed up, and Mark has an inkling it’s him who dropped something. Friendships inevitably twist and change and fade, and Donghyuck clearly doesn’t want them to drift so by virtue of both of them wanting to hold onto it, shouldn’t it always last? 

It’s okay. Mark will tide this lull and wait for Donghyuck to fill in the spaces between them again, or he’ll go looking for Donghyuck and he wonders why the gaps plague his mind like they’ve never done when Jaemin had to leave for a year.

Jaemin is his friend. Donghyuck is his friend. Maybe Mark just admires Donghyuck a bit more than, but Mark’s never looked at Jaemin’s face and been overcome with this inexplicable urge to kiss him and not having Jaemin around for five minutes certainly doesn’t make the space by Mark’s side scream out of loneliness. 

Something ugly rears its head out of the depths, and Mark dimly thinks that it shouldn’t have blindsided him quite like this--

He remembers Doyoung’s words about admiration a few months ago, sets the pen he’s had hovering over the sheet of paper for ages now, and it pours out:

_ i think i might love him. _

  
  


~

  
  


The revelation doesn’t let Mark sleep. He closes his eyes at night, breathes, and feels like his nerves are going to eat him alive. 

It’s these thoughts of what have been, what are - he doesn’t even know what they are, damnit - and what will come if Mark hasn’t completely fucked up his chances. 

Fear or adrenaline brings Mark to the door of Jaehyun’s room one night. He stares at the smooth white of the wood that he’s pushes without a thought a thousand times before - “What the fuck, Jaehyun? What’d you do this time?” - and breathes. Lets go. 

Donghyuck deserves this much at least. 

He knocks on the door. Jaehyun gives him the nastiest cut-eye Mark has ever seen come from a face as soft as Jaehyun’s, which is saying something because Mark is regularly around Donghyuck. Apparently whatever’s on Mark’s face is telling, because Jaehyun lets him past and then leaves, shutting the door behind him.

There is a lump that lethargically peeks open to a mop of light brown hair and sleepy eyes peering at the commotion at the door, before Donghyuck turns away from him resolutely.

It’s familiar but it feels like there’s this new gap that wasn’t there even when they were fighting their hardest before. Mark feels out of his depth reaching out to Donghyuck so insistently.

“Can I talk to you?” Mark says, and the words settle awkwardly in the air and they just. Stagnate. 

Donghyuck is still curled away. He shakes his head and the only indication Mark has is the subtle swish of the little mop of hair peeking above the top of the covers. 

Mark wants to back out but he grits his teeth. He isn’t going back before this is solved.

(In Mark’s room, there is a notebook page with  _ i think i might love him.  _ written hesitantly, scratched out, and then scored back in bolder than before. 

In Mark’s room, there is a phone open to Red Velvet’s Second Date.)

“Look, Hyuck,” Mark says, takes a shuddering breath. “I don’t. I don’t say this often, since I know you’ll probably never let me hear the end of this, but for all it’s worth, you know that I’m not always sure what I’m doing.

The covers snort. “You never do,” it says.

“Hyuck!” Mark says, dragging a hand over his face tiredly. “I’m trying to be serious. And, I just sorta wanted to tell you that - remember the kitchen? Remember the shit that went down in the kitchen, which I’m really sorry about, by the way - the things I say might not always be true. What I said in the kitchen might not have been completely true.”

Donghyuck is a cold kind of silent, and a cold kind of angry in the stillness in his response that Mark feels the worry creeping up. 

“Like, you’re actually pretty cool, you know? Really cool.” 

Donghyuck finally turns, if just to let Mark see that he’s raising his eyebrows. 

“Or, I mean,” Mark says, desperately backpedalling, “you’re really cute?” 

Donghyuck huffs. “Be careful, it almost sounds like you’re trying to say something you don’t mean there,” and it’s so resigned but icy that Mark’s taken aback.

Mark makes way to the edge of the bed, wanting to sit down, but the Donghyuck-blanket-lump looks so standoffish. Maybe a week prior, before all the blew up, Mark would have done it without question, but today he stands rigid and hopes Donghyuck can read the  _ I miss you _ like he’s always been able to read Mark. 

“Sometimes in the morning, when I see you, I sorta wanna kiss your dumb face,” Mark says. “And - hoo boy, this is so embarrassing and can you just like, wipe this outta your memory after? But I. I’ve thought about this and I think you deserve to know it too, like, I hope you know that I can’t really imagine life without you.”

Donghyuck’s eyes are wide. His lips are trembling a bit. “What?”

“And like, maybe I panicked a bit. Remember - remember when you asked me why I kissed you all the way back then? Back when I woke up with the hangover, you were just there and I didn’t want to lose you, so I didn’t say anything and then you just kept on pressing and I didn’t know what to do.

So. If I could tell you what I wanted to say then, I just really wanted to. That’s the answer. That’s it. I really wanted to tell you this but I didn’t know how to say it and--” 

Donghyuck squints. It’s slow and deliberate. “And you just magically? Had this epiphany  _ now _ of all times?”

Mark hesitates, before sitting down on the covers gingerly. Donghyuck doesn’t shift - doesn’t move closer or further away and just. Stares. 

“Like I said,” Mark says, and tells himself not to get defense, not to draw in, but he’s not sure if it works - “I had some time to think.”

Donghyuck breathes out. There’s something like wonder blooming in his eyes and it’s beautiful, but it’s hampered by what Mark knows to be the rational part of him that’s screaming  _ is this real  _ and  _ is Mark pulling another quick one on me _ , and the worst part is Mark doesn’t even blame him.

“You took your damn time to think,” Donghyuck says, slowly coming out of the mess of blankets. “Care to repeat what you started off this confession with?” and he says the last part slow, like he’s daring Mark to claim otherwise, and oh shit, is this really a confession?

It’s. It’s terrifying, but Mark’s already fucked up this much and he’s here to make things right and. He really really does like Donghyuck and sometimes when Donghyuck smiles, Mark just wants to be close and closer.

Oh. And Donghyuck’s still looking at him, waiting for an answer. 

“Sometimes,” Mark says, sees the sleeping image of Donghyuck in the morning light before his eyes, and gulps. “Sometimes I wake up in the mornings and want to kiss you?”

“Are you for real?” Donghyuck asks. 

It’s real. It’s very real.  _ I want to kiss you and you scare the ever-living-fuck out of me, Lee Donghyuck.  _

“I - I, just. This is totally outta the blue, Mark-hyung. Did you just expect me to drop everything once you came in here with a randomass ‘I like you?’ Did you know I liked you?”

His heart drops - he knows. He didn’t expect for Donghyuck to jump into his arms or anything but it still hurts. And - Mark takes a deep breath - he still owes Donghyuck the truth.

“Maybe a part of me suspected,” he says. “But mainly, realizing you weren’t here at my side and how hard I took you being gone made me realize. At the very least, even if you don’t accept this, this confession, I guess as you said, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been a sort of shitty - friend or whatever I am to you - for the past little while.”

Donghyuck stays still for a beat more. 

“Mark-hyung,” Donghyuck says. “Can I do something?”

Fuck, Mark thinks. This is it. Donghyuck’s asking for his permission to punch him and Mark can’t say he hasn’t seen this coming either and shit if this isn’t going to hurt. 

“Sure,” Mark says, and Donghyuck leans in and kisses him.

  
  


~

  
  


“I don’t forgive you,” Donghyuck says, the two of them curled up in the bed together ten minutes later, pressed together. “I don’t forgive you entirely.”

Mark nods solemnly, and Donghyuck swats his arm. “I know,” he says.

“You’re making this too serious,” Donghyuck whines. “I’m just tryna guilt trip you and you’re tripping me.”

Mark ducks his head. “Yeah, but I wasn’t serious about this before.”

Mark’s not entirely sure how he ended up here anyway, and if his luck is too good or if Donghyuck just hasn’t gained his sense back and maybe Donghyuck will indeed deck him in another few minutes. But that’s a problem for the Mark-a-few-minutes-in-the-future. Donghyuck’s looking at him funny, almost like he expects for Mark to be a dream and he’ll wake up any second, and it hurts to be on the receiving end. 

Mark steels his nerves and curls a hand around Donghyuck waist, playing anxiously with the hand that Donghyuck slides over his. 

Donghyuck looks at him for a good minute. “Look,” he says at last. “Jaemin would probably say I’m dumb and he’s kind of ready to fight you, but also. You’re lucky you’re cute and I know how dumb you can be, so I know you didn’t do it on purpose. Your head’s just sorta thick and you can’t help it, I guess.”

Mark huffs - trust it to be a back-handed insult, but anyway.

“Anyway. I really, really like you so don’t fuck this up.”

“I won’t,” he says, adamant. And a bit more hesitant: “And - what are we? Are we dating?”

Donghyuck tilts his head. “Honestly? I don’t know, ask me sometime later.” His tone is light, he’s pouting, and it’s meant to be joking, but years of knowing him lets Mark know that he’s kind of serious too. “You kinda hurt my feelings and I don’t know if I trust you with them again so soon.”

In answer, Mark tucks his head against Donghyuck’s shoulder. Donghyuck laughs softly. “Cute,” he says.

Mark wrinkles his nose. “We’re not the people we were.”

Donghyuck raises an eyebrow, in a clear “no shit?” gesture, but Mark’s having his moment so he ignores him. It’s time to be the bigger person, except he gives up in around two seconds when Donghyuck waggles his eyebrows and Mark hides a muffled giggle in Donghyuck’s shoulder again. 

Mark hits him. “We’ve been doing a lot of growing up in the past few months and I guess you have been too.”

Donghyuck laughs. “Shut up. Seriously, I’m too tired to be serious.”

_ I love you _ , Mark thinks, and says it out loud, for once.

Donghyuck grips his hand tighter, and immeasurably fond, says: “You’re the biggest idiot I know.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally i forgot to add the line about jaehyun leaving the room, so a very valid contribution by miss m: [(ᅌ ˇ ᅌ✿)](https://imgur.com/hQO5vrN)

**Author's Note:**

> many, many thanks to everyone who's been here for my screaming abt this fic skjfksfd <3 i wanna give a huge huge shoutout to m tho for looking this over for me i love u lots aaaaa,,, i don't think this fic would be here without u?
> 
> please consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed, and thank u for choosing to check this out uwu! ;w;


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